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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2023
Soak, poems by M. L. Williams.
Soak
Scarlet
Watching her paint each nail
carefully, her pale, aging
hands brightened by polish
perfectly applied, the tight,
black brush fanning out
in a wet red gush
on nail after filed nail,
I begged, “Do mine, Nana.”
I was four, and she complied.
She had eight boys out
of ten, knew their
spirit and their bland
ferocities, so when Joe
arrived I was transformed
from boy with blood-red claws
to girl—clearly, in his eyes
a terrible fate—and he
let me know it in a hail
of uncly taunts,
but she shushed him,
told me they were fine,
told me to wear my scarlet
Revlon nails with pride.
Intentional Fallacy
© M L Williams
M. L. Williams is the author of Game (What Books Press 2021) the chapbook Other Medicines and co-editor of How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets, and he served as editor or co-editor of Quarterly West for five years. His work appears in many journals and anthologies, including Plume, Hubbub, Salt, Western Humanities Review, Miramar, The Journal of Florida Studies, The Cortland Review, Live Encounters Poetry, and Stone, River, Sky, and has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. He co-emcees the Poetry Stage at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and he teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Valdosta State University.